Portrait of Yousuf

Netflix, fail. Phoenix Art Museum, success.

This is a piece about a showing of the documentary Karsh: The Searching Eye at Phoenix Art Museum. This writer thought it would be real smart (and totally agoraphobic) to just throw the film in the Netflix queue. This would be the part where a "FAIL" joke could be made, but since thats totally generic and annoying, suffice it to say Netflix was no help. If you want to see this 1985 documentary about the iconic portrait photographer Yousuf Karsh, youre going to have to leave the house.

Poor baby.

The Canadian of Armenian heritage captured the mystique of some of the 20th century's most famous and alluring figures, including Winston Churchill, Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Ernest Hemingway, and Pablo Picasso. Harry Raskys film about Karsh, a curious figure in his own right, shows that the photographers vast access to the famous and glamorous didn't overwhelm his modest nature.